Saturday

One of the most pivotal moments during Iowa State’s 75-69 win over Texas in the Big 12 semifinals last week came on an inbounds pass.

After hitting a couple of technical foul shots, Bridget Carleton caught a baseline-out-of-bounds pass from Alexa Middleton and scored an easy two with five minutes left in the game.

It was an essential bucket that came fairly easily. So how did the pair link up, on such a key possession against Texas? Was it a brilliant play-call? Or the product of some well-placed stagger screens?

Not quite. Sometimes, simplicity is genius.

“(Carleton) looked at me right before I got the ball out of bounds and she pointed, and so she did a back-cut and I threw a bounce pass right to her,” Middleton told the Ames Tribune.

Rather than following the set play, which dictated Carleton use a down screen to run to the perimeter, she audibled into a basic back-cut. The message was perfectly received by Middleton.

ISU coach Bill Fennelly likes to call plays. The Cyclones have a Rolodex full of them, and he constantly motions to his players to get the right set in place. But recently, the senior duo of Carleton and Middleton has been able to play a more involved role on the floor, whether it’s impromptu decision-making or designed sets.

“The way those two have been able to have some kind of symmetry together has really helped,” Fennelly told the Tribune.

The duo has connected on key buckets all season, most notably when Middleton bounced to a back-cutting Carleton in the closing seconds of a tie game in Lubbock last month for a 64-62 win over Texas Tech.

As the senior playmakers have become familiar with Big 12 opponents, Fennelly has trusted them more and more to make the right reads and decisions.

“They know the things going into the game that we’re looking for, and they’ve had a pretty good feel for it, and the way they’ve been playing, kind of let them make some decisions,” he told the Tribune.

Having two cerebral offensive players leading the ISU offense has been vital to their resurgence this year. Both Middleton and Carleton can run the show from the point position and are aware of the skillsets of their teammates, which allows them to make wise calls.

“We’ve had players in the past, Allison Lacy, Lyndsey (Fennelly), Stacey Frese, people like that, that have been really good at it. We haven’t had a lot of teams where we’ve had two of them that really, it doesn’t matter, and I think that’s given us some flexibility,” Fennelly told the Tribune.

Middleton, who played three years at Tennessee, says this year is the most half-court sets she’s ever run. The Cyclones play free in transition, but often use a designed play in the half court.

The point guard praised Fennelly for his ability to draw up plays both before and during games.

“He’s so intelligent. I’ve learned so much from him,” she told the Tribune.

Middleton said the Cyclones aren’t the most athletic team, so sharp, refined sets can give them an advantage.

“It’s not the same thing every time, we don’t play like robots, it’s nothing like that, but I think we’re putting ourselves in the best situation to be able to score and get points on the offensive end,” she told the Tribune.

The Cyclones often script a few plays from the game’s outset, just to get a feel for how opponents will guard Carleton, the Big 12 Player of the Year.

Most half-court possessions throughout the game are rooted in a set play, but some are more freeform. A possession might start with a ball-screen and evolve from there, with players understanding certain areas on the court they should be at a given time. “Structured freedom,” Fennelly calls it.

The No. 13 Cyclones (25-8) are currently awaiting their NCAA tournament seeding, and Fennelly said in the national tournament he’s likely to call more plays — rather than allowing Carleton and Middleton to run the show — against an unfamiliar opponent.

Fennelly intensely scouts foes ahead of matchups, but in this case, ISU doesn’t yet know who it’ll be playing. It’ll find out on Monday evening during the selection show, which fans can watch with the ISU team on Monday at the Sukup South End Zone Club at 5:45 p.m.

Guesses can be made as to who the Cyclones will play next. ESPN’s Charlie Creme has them pegged as a No. 4 seed, hosting No. 13 seed Bucknell, which ISU actually defeated in December. But, there’s also a plethora of other schools ISU could be paired with in its NCAA tournament opener.

The Cyclones haven’t won an NCAA tournament game since 2013, and Middleton is the only ISU player to have won a tournament game; she won seven tourney games during her three years with the Volunteers.

Middleton said the upcoming task will be a new one for the Cyclones, as they face unknown opponents. She said she doesn’t have any magic words or wisdom to impart on her teammates as they enter the climax of the season, but she will simply preach confidence.

“We’re a great team,” she told the Tribune. “There’s no reason we should go into any game afraid of losing, because we’ve proved what we can do, we’ve shown what we can do and how good we can be. I think we should have that mindset going in, where we’re attacking, we’re not defending.”

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